We’re working with Manchester’s three orchestras and major music venues to recommend ways to raise the profile of this significant sector with stakeholders, media and audiences.

Manchester is an extraordinary place to be a music scholar, a musician or audience member – offering Chetham’s School of Music and its new Stoller Hall concert venue opening next year; the Royal Northern College of Music conservatoire and performance venue; The Bridgewater Hall, Hallé St Peters & St Michaels, plus other music venues across the city, and of course three outstanding orchestras performing at the top of their game: the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic – also regularly broadcasting on BBC Radio 3 – and Manchester Camerata. So why is this not more recognised and celebrated? It’s all about partnerships and collaboration and we’re recommending new ways of thinking and working together.

Image: Stoller Hall

There are many fantastic national initiatives, but how much do you know about The National Forest? If you don’t live in its 200+sqm in the Midlands, perhaps not too much. So we were invited to help to shape a new event to carry their environmental and regeneration messages to a wider audience.

That’s a big brief, made bigger by wanting to boost visitors, profile, revenues and partnerships. The National Forest Company is rightly ambitious – they’ve planted over 2m trees in the last 25 years after all. Our options appraisal explored how a potential new festival could celebrate the area’s landscape, culture and special qualities, while also supporting The National Forest’s thriving tourism, creative and woodland economy communities through promotion of and participation in its work.

Sleepy market town. It’s a well-worn stereotype – and it’s not always true. Take Cheltenham. It has some of the strongest cultural events to be found in the West – Cheltenham Festivals, and the Gold Cup spring to mind. Working with the inestimable consultant John Knell, we developed an outcomes-based tourism strategy that can take the town forward together.

Outcomes is an important word. A new partnership has been established – but with clear and shared goals. A new post has been created – working to a 3-year development route map that Creative Tourist developed with the key tourism partners. Cheltenham punches above its weight already, and our work is part of ensuring that their planning, investment and infrastructure can match their product and promotion.

View CTConsults’ case study – Setting the alarm for a sleepy festival town

In collaboration with 14-18 NOW and Manchester Art Gallery we worked together to target younger audiences to view this new fashion and films exhibition, Fashion and Freedom. We created an innovative marketing campaign which both raised the profile of the exhibition in Manchester’s cultural calendar and worked hard to reach those younger audiences. Working closely with Manchester Art Gallery’s staff, maximising their existing communications strengths and identify opportunities to try new things.

We also worked with a range of partners across the city to bring in younger, non-traditional audiences to this new exhibition inspired by women during the First World War as part of the World War 1 Centenary Commissions.  The exhibition featured contemporary fashion by some of the UK’s leading female designers including Dame Vivienne Westwood and Roksana, and a series of short films, some of which we screened outdoors and at Selfridges during the Student Big Night Out.

View CTConsults’ case study – A contemporary take on war-time stories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMF01q0UrZM

For some time now we have been busy with our colleagues at Marketing Manchester developing Culture Hosts – an innovative mix of tools designed to make better connections between culture and hospitality.

The digital element is a powerful listings engine that allows its users to upload event content which is then published in many places – from online magazines and DMO websites to e-newsletters for 100s of hotel reception staff. There’s even a possibility it will send what’s on information to an interactive bus-stop soon!

And then there is the low-tech counterpart. Culture Hosts is also a training programme aimed at developing culture product-knowledge with concierge teams in hotels and visitor centres. These are people who talk directly with 1000s of potential visitors each day, and this project has revealed some fascinating insights about how to deliver a better customer service and visitor experiences.

This is a project funded by Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts Lottery programme, managed by Marketing Manchester and shaped by the Manchester Cultural Destinations Group.

We are excited about our new 2-year partnership with the BBC Philharmonic – one of the UK’s leading classical music brands.

This is an orchestra at the top of its game – willing to take exciting musical risks with its programme, repertoire and style.  Our brief is to reflect the orchestra’s key messages in the communications campaign and:

• Take risks – with approaches, channels and messages
• Be fresh, innovative and youthful
• Tell the story of the orchestra’s role in the North of England cultural scene
• Capture the qualities and impact of the live experience
• Develop collaborative practices

One of the key outcomes of our work is to find a new, but high prospect audience – and we are busy testing a range of different content, channels and messages to see what might help awaken the interest of this ‘sleeping’ audience.

This Spring we are going to be working in Torbay helping to unlock the power of cultural tourism in this stunning UNESCO Global GeoPark, also home of Agatha Christie and the distinctive maritime festival Fishstock run by the local Fisherman’s Mission.

Tourism is already the area’s dominant industry, with 9 million bednights each year and approximately 15,000 people employed both directly and indirectly. Cultural tourism isn’t a major feature of the offer at the moment however, and our challenge is to look at how to make the most of existing assets and where to target investment to help Torbay appeal to new markets, especially outside the traditional summer season.

View CTConsults’ case study – Turning from rare highlights to ongoing appeal